The invention relates to a conveying device for transporting a conveyable product, particularly a flowable product, with an essentially cylindrical chamber, in which at least one shaft is disposed, which extends along the axis of the cylinder, each shaft having a plurality of first conveying elements for transporting the product in a product-conveying direction, which extend radially from the shaft and are connected with the shaft in each case at a connecting site on the surface of the shaft, the individual connecting sites being disposed along a helical line at the surface of the shaft and the plurality of first conveying elements forming a first flight, corresponding to the helical line, with a first so-called discontinuous web, which extends helically about the surface of the shaft. This discontinuous web or “quasi web” consists of conveying elements, which are disposed along a helical line at the shaft.
Such conveying devices are used, for example, for preparing starting materials for the production of foods or feeds. The products to be transported are, for example, starting materials, which usually are grainy or flaky products, optionally moistened with water and partly soaked, which are then processed in further steps into food or feed products. These further steps take place, for example, in an extruder, a flake-forming rolling mill or in a pellet press.
During the conveying of such or similar flowable products by the conveying device named above, compacting of the product into plug-like accumulations, which emerge intermittently at the outlet of the conveying device and, with that, lead to a non-uniform ejection of the product at the outlet of the conveying device named above, takes place increasingly during the transport of the product by means of the conveying elements. This non-uniformity of the product flow then continues in the further steps of the process of product preparation and product processing and leads, on the one hand, to non-uniform processing of the product and, on the other, to non-uniform loading or even overloading of the machines in the further processing steps. In any case, an optimum, continuous process cannot be conducted in this way.